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Thursday, May 24, 2007

Article in UK news about Fatima

This was a decent article in The Independent out of the UK. It's not often that anything Catholic gets treated with decency. There are some errors, as is typical of secular media articles, but overall it's a switch to see Catholicism treated nicely.

The Big Question: Why is there a shrine at Fatima, and what is its significance for Catholics?

By Paul Vallely

Published: 24 May 2007

Why are we asking this question now?

The shrine at Fatima is regarded as the holiest site in Portugal, and it was there yesterday that the parents of Madeleine McCann made a pilgrimage to pray for a miracle in the search for the missing four-year-old. Indeed it is one of the most celebrated sites in Roman Catholicism.

So how did the shrine come to exist?

It is one of a handful of places where Catholic tradition has it that Mary, the mother of Jesus, has staged supernatural apparitions in modern times.

In 1917 three shepherd children reported visions of the Virgin Mary in fields outside the city of Fatima, north of Lisbon. They claimed that the visions continued from May to October, always on the 13th day of the month. The children said that the apparition gave them messages suggesting that the First World War, which was then raging, would end if Catholics devoutly said the prayer known as the Rosary.

Fatima is now one of the world's major centres of pilgrimage. Ten days ago some 300,000 pilgrims flocked there to mark the 90th anniversary of the date of the vision. The place is so iconic to the Portuguese that their national identity is said to be defined as: "Fado, Fatima and Football".

Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron

St. John of the Cross

Dark Night of the Soul (2.2:3)...

"...the devil causes many to believe in vain visionsand false prophecies; and strives to make them presumethat God and the saints are speaking with them; and they often trust their own fancy. And the devil is also accustomed, in this state, to fill them with presumption and pride, so that they become attracted by vanity and arrogance, and allow themselves to be seen engaging in outward acts which appear holy, such as raptures and other manifestations. Thus they become bold with God, and lose holy fear, which is the key and the custodian of all the virtues; and in some of these souls so many are the falsehoods and deceits which tend to multiply, and so inveterate do they grow, that it is very doubtful if such souls will return to the pure road of virtue and true spirituality."